An Investigation of Content and Media Images in Gay Men's Magazines

Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 55(3) 2008Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com© 2008 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.

504 doi:10.1080/00918360802345297

WJHM0091-83691540-3602Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 55, No. 3, August 2008: pp. 1–26Journal of Homosexuality

An Investigation of Content and Media Images in Gay Men’s Magazines

Jason A. Saucier and Sandra L. CaronJournal of Homosexuality Jason A. Saucier, MSSandra L. Caron, PhD

University of Maine

ABSTRACT. This study provides an analysis of gay men’s magazines,examining both the content and advertisements. Four magazine titles wereselected, including The Advocate, Genre, Instinct, and Out, each targetinggay men as its target audience. These magazines were coded for both arti-cle content and advertisement content. In the advertisement analysis, boththe type of advertisement and characteristics of the men depicted within theadvertisement when present. The results mirror previous research findingsrelating to the portrayal of women, including the objectification of specificbody parts and the high community standards set by the images depicted.These findings were reinforced by both the advertisements and contentanalyzed to include a high degree of importance being placed on having theright body type. Implications for further research are discussed.

KEYWORDS. Gay men, magazines, content analysis, advertising,media images

Jason A. Saucier, MS, is a former graduate student in human development atthe University of Maine and is currently pursuing a Master’s in nursing at JohnsHopkins University.

Sandra L. Caron, PhD, is a professor of family relations/human sexuality atthe University of Maine.

Address correspondence to: Sandra L. Caron, PhD, University of Maine, 5749Merrill Hall, Orono, ME 04469 (E-mail: [email protected]).

Jason A. Saucier and Sandra L. Caron 505

Research on women and the ways in which they are affected by themedia have been well documented for decades. Body image, eating disor-ders, low self-esteem, and low self-efficacy have all been linked to howthe media presents women in advertisements and mainstream popularAmerican television (Green & Pritchard, 2003). For years advertisershave portrayed a specific body type that only few females can actuallymold their bodies into (Groesz, Levine, & Murman, 2002). Through inter-nalization, advertisements and popular culture are setting a high standardof beauty that women are attempting to live up to, one that is physicallyimpossible for most women to attain (Kilbourne, 1999).

In addition to advertisements, article content in women’s magazineshas also been linked to social constructs that women have been found tofollow (Pierce, 1990). For example, an analysis of Seventeen magazinearticles from 1960 to 1985 investigated the subject matter of the materialincorporated and correlated this to the feminist movement and its chang-ing entity over time (Schlenker, Caron, & Halteman, 1998). Analysis ofthe magazine’s content indicated a relationship between the articles andthe development of the women’s movement, suggesting a connectionbetween what is mass produced in the media and the behavior of the pop-ulation targeted. Together, advertisements and articles set a precedenceand milieu that harbors images and feelings, weighing down not onlywomen in America, but men as well, who have set a high standard inaccordance with acceptable body shape and size.

In recent years, advertisers have increasingly targeted men and maleself-image (Barthel, 1994; Ehrenreich, 1983; Rohlinger, 2002). Whenlooking specifically at ads geared toward gay men, advertising spendingin gay publications increased throughout the 1990s from 61.6 million in1995 to 73.7 million in 1996, and from $120 million in 1998 to $155.3million in 1999 (Elliot, 1996; Rothman, 1999; “Spending Increases inGay Magazines,” 2000).

One of the few longitudinal studies regarding men’s image analysiswas conducted by Law and Labre (2002), which took a 30-year look athow images have changed in men’s magazines. They analyzed GQ,Rolling Stone, and Sports Illustrated from 1967 to 1997 and found thatduring the past three decades men have increasingly been bombardedwith images and messages concerning the ideal male body and, therefore,these attributes have become more important to men over the years—making body image an issue that men are contending with in increasingproportions (Kimmel & Mahalik, 2004; Law & Labre, 2002; McCreary &Sasse, 2000).

506 JOURNAL OF HOMOSEXUALITY

In the past, the idealized male body portrayed in the media was a muchmore attainable goal, being easily achieved it allowed for men to feelmore comfortable with their bodies. It has been found that during the pastthree decades that males were exposed to an increased number of articlesand advertisements addressing how to improve their shape, strengthen,and tone their muscles, and change their exercise habits (Law & Labre,2002). Also noting the higher number of men dissatisfied with their bod-ies, these numbers seem to go hand in hand. It has also been found thatgay men sometimes develop a hyper masculine persona attributed by theirlower societal standing and the notion that they are not real men becauseof their sexual orientation. This persona is often presented by the push tohave a hyper masculine physical appearance in order to ward off stereo-types (Kimmel & Mahalik, 2004; Pope, Phillips, & Olivardia, 2000).

Men have begun to show similar symptoms of the internalization ofimages (Barthel, 1994; Ehrenreich, 1983; Rohlinger, 2002). Gay men,especially, are experiencing extraordinary pressure to remain thin andhave a youthful-looking body (Kassel & Franko, 2000). More than het-erosexual men, gay men have been found to struggle with body imageissues, including but not limited to body dysmorphia, anorexia andbulimia, and muscularity. It was noted in the 1980s that gay cultureplaced a much higher emphasis on being attractive (Lakoff & Scherr,1984), and more current research has shown that homosexual men aremore likely to be dissatisfied with their body compared with heterosexualmen (Beren, Hayden, Wilfley, & Grilo, 1996).

Over the past 25 years a threefold increase of men dissatisfied withtheir bodies has taken hold, representing 43% of men, a number that iscreeping quite close to the number of women who feel dissatisfied withtheir body (Pope, et al., 2000). Gay men in particular have set an unusu-ally high standard of attractiveness, often clouding judgments regardingtheir health and well being (Halkitis, Green, & Wilton, 2004). Alongwith being lean and thin, a high value has been placed on being thin andmuscular (Williamson & Hartley, 1998), yet little has been researchedregarding what is influencing gay men to make these life decisions. Astudy by Kennedy (2000) suggests a link between how men feel aboutthemselves and the media that surrounds them. Potentially, a paralleldevelopment to what women have been struggling with for years andwhat gay men are feeling today exists. Recent work has shown thatinternalization of media messages is potentially a causal risk factor forthe onset of eating and shape-related disorders (Thompson & Stice,2001).


This study investigates the media messages found in advertisementsand article content in the four most popular magazines for gay men. Thisstudy focused on two research questions:

1. How are gay men represented in advertisements and images foundwithin popular gay magazines? Specifically, what are the images ofgay men in The Advocate, Genre, Instinct, and Out?

2. What messages are being communicated in the articles of thesemagazines? These messages are the substantial aim of the magazineand create the foundation of the magazines mission and form thebackdrop for the advertisements and images within the article (i.e.,the supporting photos to the article).

METHOD

Sample

Four popular gay magazines were chosen from the top 10 magazinesdistributed in the United States. The circulation of these magazines wasfound online through various search engines and sites. The followingdescriptions of each magazine were extrapolated from the home websiteof each publication.

The Advocate, established in 1967, is the national gay and lesbiannewsmagazine, that addresses the latest issues and breaking stories shap-ing the lives of gay and straight America, including important stories themainstream press does not cover. It is published every two weeks and isavailable nationally at newsstands and bookstores throughout the UnitedStates and 17 other countries and has been described as comparable toNewsweek in reference to both circulation and audience. In 2004, itproduced a circulation of 109.1 million magazines.

Genre magazine, founded in 1992, focuses on fashion, travel, and life-style issues for affluent gay men. It writes about the people and storiesthat are often overlooked by the general media and even some other gaypublications. This magazine highlights the experiences and concerns thatenrich the lives of its readers, reflects the growing diversity and interestsof the gay community. It is nationally distributed and has a circulationcount of 95,000 per issue.

Instinct magazine, established in 1997, is a clever mix of Cosmo andMaxim. Instinct is funny, sexy, and smart, and is a new kind of gay magazine,


one that does not take itself so seriously, and affords a welcome break fromthe politically correct. It has a circulation of about 75,000 and estimates that ithas an audience of 240,000 since multiple people view each individual maga-zine and a total of 61.3 million magazines produced for 2004.

Out magazine was founded in 1992 as America's first general-interestgay and lesbian magazine. Since its inception, it has grown to become thelargest in its niche, with a monthly readership of nearly half a million anda total circulation of 121 million for 2004.

Procedure

Four issues from each year (2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004) wereobtained for each magazine. This yielded a sample of 64 magazines. Eachyear was sampled using one issue from each of the four seasons of the cal-endar year. Each magazine was examined from page one to back cover.Articles for content analysis were established through the table ofcontents and all articles listed were examined and coded. Advertisementswere coded when they covered one third of the page or more. Smalleradvertisements were usually found within the last few pages of each mag-azine and made up a similar data pool as that found in the classifieds of anewspaper. These pages were not included in the data collected. Imageswere also limited to the advertisements in the magazine and did notinclude any supporting photos to articles.

Definition of Categories

Initial coding categories for the topic of the advertisements werecreated. Ads were then coded by each researcher, compared, differencesdiscussed, and coding categories refined. The following eight categorieswere formulated:

1. Alcohol and cigarette advertisements2. Clothing, beauty products, and other products to enhance one’s

image to others3. Health products, HIV medications, self-development (e.g., wellness

retreats)4. Vehicles, electronic products, home products5. Financial, business, politics6. Entertainment7. Travel and gay pride events8. Other


A second round of analysis of the advertisements was then undertakenthat focused on the image of the man appearing in the ad. Within eachadvertisement, it was recorded whether or not a man was part of theadvertisement. This image of the man was then coded into a number ofattributes that made-up the image of a man. Each advertisement wascoded only once into all of the categories that it fulfilled. The followingfive coding categories were used for the image analysis of the men repre-sented in advertisements:

1. Youthful—if the image gave a representation of a man lookingunder the age of 30.

2. Shirtless—man not wearing a shirt.3. Hairless—contingent on 2, if not wearing a shirt and chest is hair-

less.4. Muscularity—showed evidence of muscle tone and low percentage

of body fat.5. Caucasian—the representation was that of a Caucasian male.

Article content analysis was a variation of a model developed by Pierce(1990), which examined how teenage girls are socialized throughSeventeen magazine. This model was the basic structure of coding, but thecategories were changed to match the mission and genre of what thesemagazines are presenting to gay men. The following nine categorieswere used to code the content of the articles in these magazines:

1. Appearance—latest fashion, beauty enhancement, how you ratetoward others.

2. Relationships—advice on relationships/dating and any notiontoward dating and relations toward others.

3. Self-development—health, caring for your body, personality, rela-tions with others of nonromantic interest.

4. Travel—articles that relate to traveling to specific areas, resorts,cruises, etc.

5. Entertainment—articles on pop stars, film reviews, book reviews,theatre, etc.

6. Political/world issues—environment, international issues; politicalarticles.

7. Home—relating to home décor, being a good host, cooking.8. Product comparisons—articles comparing products of similar

nature to aid reader in choosing the product right for them.


9. Featured men—articles featuring specific men who are not celebri-ties, but showcase them for different reasons, such as dating,making examples of their success as gay men, etc.

Analysis

Each magazine was examined for content in a page-by-page analysisand counted the number of pages dedicated to each of the categoriesestablished. All advertisement images were at least one-third page sizeand images associated with articles were counted as article pages.The percentages for each category identified were calculated for analysis.The number of pages attributing to content were counted; percentageswere tabulated and compared.

RESULTS

Advertisements

Examining research question one involved the tabulation of two sepa-rate tables. Table 1 depicts the numbers of pages designated for advertise-ments in the appropriate categories. Three values are found per cell, thefirst being the number of pages designated to represent advertisements inthat category. The second number within parenthesis is the number ofpages in which a man is used in the advertisements. The third number isthe percentage of the coded category that makes up each specific maga-zine and for total percentages in the last column.

Alcohol and cigarette advertisements made up 63 advertisementpages (12%) within The Advocate, 49 pages (9%) within Genre, 60pages (9%) within Instinct, 175 pages (9%) within Out, and a total of347 advertisement pages (13%) aimed at alcohol and cigarettes.Within these alcohol and cigarette advertisements, a total of 76 pagesutilized photos of men within the advertisement. The Advocatecontained 9 pages, Genre contained 9 pages, Instinct contained20 pages, and Out contained 38 pages of alcohol and cigarette adver-tisements plus depicted men.

Clothing and image enhancement advertisements made up 6 advertise-ment pages (1%) within The Advocate, 63 pages (12%) with Genre, 96pages (14%) within Instinct, 238 pages (14%) within Out, and a total of403 advertisement pages (15%) aimed at clothing and image enhancement


products. Within these clothing and image enhancement product adver-tisements a total of 286 pages utilized photos of men within the advertise-ment. The Advocate contained 3 pages, Genre contained 48 pages,Instinct contained 81 pages, and Out contained 154 pages of clothing andimage enhancement product advertisements plus depicted men.

Health, HIV medications, and self-development advertisements madeup 90 advertisement pages (17%) within The Advocate, 105 pages (20%)with Genre, 104 pages (15%) within Instinct, 127 pages (13%) withinOut, and a total of 426 advertisement pages (16%) aimed at health, HIVmedication, and self development ads. Within these health, HIV medica-tion, and self-development advertisements a total of 145 pages utilizedphotos of men within the advertisement. The Advocate contained 43pages, Genre contained 34 pages, Instinct contained 39 pages, and Outcontained 29 pages of health, HIV medication, and self-developmentadvertisements plus depicted men.

TABLE 1. Number (and percentage) of pages devoted to advertisements in the various categories in The Advocate, Genre, Instinct, and Out a

Categories of ads The Advocate Genre Instinct Out Totalsn = 519 n = 517 n = 679 n = 967 n = 2682

1. Alcohol and cigarette 63 (9) 49 (9) 60 (20) 175 (38) 347 (76)12% 9% 9% 9% 13%

2. Clothing and image enhancement

6 (3) 63 (48) 96 (81) 238 (154) 403 (286)1% 12% 14% 14% 15%

3. Health, HIV meds, self-development

90 (43) 105 (34) 104 (39) 127 (29) 426 (145)17% 20% 15% 13% 16%

4. Vehicles, electronic and home products

82 (9) 53 (19) 53 (16) 179 (34) 367 (78)16% 10% 8% 19% 14%

5. Financial, business, and politics

53 (16) 14 (3) 26 (5) 51 (16) 144 (40)10% 3% 4% 5% 5%

6. Entertainment 111 (8) 92 (19) 112 (44) 109 (2) 424 (73)21% 18% 16% 11% 16%

7. Travel and gay pride events

109 (37) 134 (52) 221 (69) 83 (33) 547 (191)21 % 26% 33% 9% 20%

8. Other 5 (1) 7 (3) 7 (5) 5 (1) 24 (10)1% 1% 1% 1% 1%

aThree values are found per cell, the first being the number of pages designated to repre-sent advertisements in that category. The second number within parenthesis is the numberof pages in which a man is used in the advertisements. The third number is the percentageof the coded category that makes up each specific magazine and for total percentages in thelast column.


Vehicle, electronic products, and home product advertisements madeup 82 advertisement pages (16%) within The Advocate, 53 pages (10%)with Genre, 53 pages (8%) within Instinct, 179 pages (19%) within Out,and a total of 367 advertisement pages (14%) aimed at vehicles, elec-tronic products, and home products. Within these vehicle, electronicproduct, and home product advertisements a total of 78 pages utilizedphotos of men within the advertisement. The Advocate contained 9 pages,Genre contained 19 pages, Instinct contained 16 pages, and Out contained34 pages of vehicle, electronic product, and home product advertisementsplus depicted men.

Financial, business, and political advertisements made up 53 advertise-ment pages (10%) within The Advocate, 14 pages (3%) with Genre, 26pages (4%) within Instinct, 51 pages (5%) within Out, and a total of 144advertisement pages (5%) aimed at financial, business, and politicaladvertisements. Within these financial, business, and political advertise-ments a total of 40 pages utilized photos of men within the advertisement.The Advocate contained 16 pages, Genre contained 3 pages, Instinct con-tained 5 pages, and Out contained 16 pages of financial, business, andpolitical advertisements plus depicted men.

Entertainment advertisements made up 111 advertisement pages (21%)within The Advocate, 92 pages (18%) with Genre, 112 pages (16%)within Instinct, 109 pages (11%) within Out, and a total of 424 pages(16%) aimed at entertainment advertisements. Within these entertainmentadvertisements a total of 73 pages utilized photos of men within theadvertisement. The Advocate contained 8 pages, Genre contained 19pages, Instinct contained 44 pages, and Out contained 2 pages of enter-tainment advertisements plus depicted men.

Travel and gay pride event advertisements made up 109 advertisementpages (21%) within The Advocate, 134 pages (26%) with Genre, 221 pages(33%) within Instinct, 83 pages (9%) within Out, and a total of 547 pages(20%) aimed at travel and gay pride event advertisements. Within thesetravel and gay pride event advertisements a total of 191 pages utilizedphotos of men within the advertisement. The Advocate contained 37pages, Genre contained 52 pages, Instinct contained 69 pages, and Outcontained 33 pages of travel and gay pride event advertisements plusdepicted men.

Other advertisements made up 5 advertisement pages (1%) within TheAdvocate, 7 pages (1%) with Genre, 7 pages (1%) within Instinct, 5 pages(1%) within Out, and a total of 24 pages (1%) aimed at other advertise-ments. Other advertisements included such things as products and events


aimed specifically toward women, services that are linked to products—yet not the product itself such as cellular phone plans and Internet hookup. Within these other advertisements, a total of 10 pages utilized photosof men within the advertisement. The Advocate contained 1 page, Genrecontained 3 pages, Instinct contained 5 pages, and Out contained 1 pageof other advertisements plus depicted men.

Also coded were physical attributes that men depicted within eachadvertisement. Table 2 contains the data collected from examining themen portrayed in each advertisement. The first number is the number ofadvertisements that contain the coded attribute. The second number is therounded percentage of this attribute found among the men portrayedwithin the advertisements. Note that n for the hairless category is thenumber of men found to be shirtless, and therefore a different n is used tocalculate this percentage since it is a contingency question because hair-lessness was only coded if the male was shirtless. Examples of advertise-ments depicting these categories can be found in Figures 1–5.

Five attributes were coded for each advertisement that contained aman. The first attribute had 118 images (93%) in The Advocate, whichconsisted of a man depicting youthful appearance, 168 images (90%) inGenre, 257 images (92%) in Instinct, 290 images (94%) in Out, and 883advertisement images (98%) total for the four magazines. Within The

TABLE 2. Number (and percentage) of ads with categories of attributes in The Advocate, Genre, Instinct, and Out a

The Advocate Genre Instinct Out Totalsn = 126 n = 187 n = 279 n = 307 n = 899

1. Youthful appearance 118 168 257 290 88394% 90% 92% 94% 98%

2. Shirtless 57 120 189 101 46745% 64% 68% 33% 52%

3. Hairless 56 119 188 99 462n = 57 n = 120 n = 189 n = 101 n = 467

98% 99% 99% 98% 99%4. Muscle tone/low

body fat58 125 203 89 47546% 67% 73% 29% 53%

5. Caucasian 116 168 269 298 85192% 90% 96% 97% 95%

aThe first number in each cell is the number of advertisements that contain the codedattribute. The second number is the rounded percentage of this attribute found among themen portrayed within the advertisements.


Advocate, there were 57 advertisement images (45%) that contain a shirt-less man, 120 in (64%) Genre, 189 in (68%) Instinct, 101 in (33%) Out,and 467 total shirtless image advertisements (52%) found. Of the shirtlessmen coded, a second factor of hairlessness was examined in contingency.In The Advocate, 56 images (98%) of men were found to have a hairlesschest, while 119 were found (99%) in Genre, 188 found (99%) in Instinct,99 found (98%) in Out, and 462 total images (99%) of shirtless andhairless men.

Muscle tone and low body fat were the next category coded, The Advo-cate contained 58 images (46%), Genre contained 125 (67%), Instinctcontained 203 (73%), Out contained 89 (29%), and a total of 475 images(53%) of muscularity were found within these magazines.

The last category consists of advertisement images that contain Caucasianmen. In The Advocate, 116 images (92%) were found, Genre had 168(90%), Instinct had 269 (96%), Out contained 298 images (97%), and atotal number of 851 images (95%) of Caucasian men were found within allfour magazines.

FIGURE 1. Example of advertisements depicting the attribute Youthful.


Article Content

The second research question examined the content of the magazines.Nine categories were developed to code for the content analysis of all thearticles within each magazine. Table 3 shows the results for the codedcontent of the articles. The first number in each cell represents the numberof pages designated for each code. The second number is the percentageof that category within the magazine and in the final column, the totalpercentages of all the magazines.

Articles on appearance had a total number of 740 pages (24%) withinall of the magazines. Appearance made up 5 pages (1%) of The Advocate,279 pages (31%) in Genre, 200 pages (27%) in Instinct, and 256 pages(30%) contributed to appearance within Out.

The second category is that of relationships. In The Advocate, 9 pages(1%) of article content on relationships were found, 29 pages (3%) inGenre, 121 pages (17%) in Instinct, 15 pages (2%) in Out. The total

FIGURE 2. Example of advertisements depicting the attribute Shirtless.


number of article pages communicating about relationships is 174 andconstitutes 6% of the total article pages.

The third category is self-development, which had a total of 240, mak-ing up 8% of the pages counted. Within The Advocate, 51 pages (8%)were counted, 50 pages (6%) within Genre, 98 pages (13%) withinInstinct, and 41 pages (5%) within Out all contributing to self-develop-ment and advancing oneself.

Travel is category four and had a total number of 177 pages and madeup 6% of the total. From The Advocate, 0 (0%) were found to representtravel, 92 (10%) from Genre, 47 (6%) from Instinct, and 38 (4%) of pagesfrom Out were found to make up articles involving travel.

Category five is entertainment, where The Advocate made up 363pages (57%), Genre made up 254 pages (29%), Instinct made up 170pages (23%), and Out made up 355 pages (41%). A total of 1,142 pages,or 37% of articles, were devoted to entertainment.

FIGURE 3. Example of advertisements depicting the attribute Hairless.


Political/world issues had a total of 351 pages, which makes up 11% ofthe total pages. The Advocate made up 207 pages (33%), Genre made up39 pages (4%), Instinct made up 25 pages (3%), and Out made up 80pages (9%).

Home and being a good host was found in 117 pages making up 4% ofthe total amount of pages counted. The makeup of home articles in TheAdvocate had 0 pages (0%), Genre had 67 pages (7%), Instinct had 22pages (3%), and Out has 28 pages (3%) showing a small number for thiscategory.

Product comparisons had a total of 169 pages making up 5% of the arti-cle pages in the magazines. Contributing to this was The Advocate with 0(0%), Genre with 76 (9%), Instinct with 49 (7%), and Out with 44 (5%).

Featured men had a total of 112 pages 4% among all of the magazines.Making this up was The Advocate, which had 8 pages (1%), Genre had29 pages (3%), Instinct had 74 pages (10%), and Out had 1 page which

FIGURE 4. Example of advertisements depicting the attribute Muscularity.


was much less than 1% (0%). This represents a small category, but onethat you are unlikely to find in many other types of magazines and there-fore interesting.

DISCUSSION

Advertisements

In analyzing the advertisement topic, the distribution of the types ofadvertisements ranged from 5% for ads focusing on financial, business,and politics to 20% for ads focusing on travel and gay pride events.The highest percentage of advertisements focusing on travel and gay prideevents was not surprising, since it has been suggested that gay men havemoney to spend on vacations and do travel a great deal more, potentially a

FIGURE 5. Example of advertisements depicting the attribute Caucasian.


result of double income with no children. Financial, business, and politi-cal ads represented the smallest percentage in every magazine except TheAdvocate (10%) and reflect the fact that the focus of most of the maga-zines under review are fashion, travel, and entertainment.

The findings of the way men are represented within the advertisementsare of particular importance. These are the images that men compare theirbodies to and potentially reinforce or create feelings of low self-worth andesteem described by Pope et al. (2000). The first category, youthfulappearance, was found in almost all of the images coded for this study(98%). This “under 30” look is one that has been demonstrated as valuedby the gay community (Halkitis et al., 2004) and reflected here withinthese gay magazines. It seems that even The Advocate, the oldest publica-tion priding itself with a mission aimed at more political and worldviewsand targeting a full range of ages in readership, shows 90% of the menrepresented within advertisements appearing to be under the age of 30.

TABLE 3. Content analysis of The Advocate, Genre, Instinct, and Out a

The Advocate Genre Instinct Out Totalsn = 635 n = 886 n = 732 n = 857 n = 3110

1. Appearance 5 279 200 256 7400% 31% 27% 30% 24%

2. Relationships 9 29 121 15 1741% 3% 17% 2% 6%

3. Self development 51 50 98 41 2408% 6% 13% 5% 8%

4. Travel 0 92 47 38 1770% 10% 6% 4% 6%

5. Entertainment 363 254 170 355 114257% 29% 23% 41% 37%

6. Political/world issues 207 39 25 80 35133% 4% 3% 9% 11%

7. Home 0 67 22 28 1170% 7% 3% 3% 4%

8. Product comparison 0 76 49 44 1690% 9% 7% 5% 5%

9. Featured men 8 29 74 1 1121% 3% 10% 0% 4%

aThe first number in each cell represents the number of pages designated for each code.The second number is the percentage of that category within the magazine and in the finalcolumn, the total percentages of all the magazines.


The second category is that of shirtless men. Results showing that half(52%) of all the men depicted within the magazines are shirtless is notsurprising when one considers that most of the advertisements are relatedto travel category, and most of these are for tropical and warm destina-tions. However, shirtless men were found among every topic category,including an advertisements selling life insurance. Of the men foundwithout a shirt, all but 1% of these men have a hairless chest. Since manymen naturally grow hair on their chest, one can infer that either these menare truly perfect or they are willing to undergo the very painful experienceof waxing or electrolysis.

The third coding category included muscularity and low body fat andwas noted when these features were visible. It was found that half of themen in the advertisements had very low body fat and a high degree ofmuscularity. It should be noted that ads containing only headshots or menin loose clothing inhibited coding in this category. If these men were ableto be distinguished as muscular or not, it is most certain that this percent-age would be far higher than the 53% reported, since nearly all the menwere clearly not obese.

Finally, in terms of the images portrayed, if a person outside the UnitedStates were to look at these magazines and assume that is was a reflectionof the general ethnic makeup of gay men in America, then they woulddeduce that 95% of the population is Caucasian. Obviously, the gay com-munity is made up of more than 5% of other ethnic groups and yet onewould not know this by looking at these magazines. Overall results of theanalysis of the advertisements found that the image of a man depicted inthese popular gay magazines is that of a young, shirtless, hairless, muscu-lar, low-body-fat, Caucasian man. Such an image is one that few meninvolved in the readership of these magazines fit into.

Article Content

The article content within these magazines followed many of the sametrends that are found within the advertisements reported above. A highdegree of importance is placed upon an expensive lifestyle and looks.Over one third (37%) of all the articles feature entertainment and popularculture, while only one tenth (11%) feature political and world issues. TheAdvocate was found to have a much higher contribution to content focus-ing on the political and world issue category (33%), while the next high-est magazine with this type of content is Out (9%). It is not surprising thatThe Advocate had the highest percentage in this category because it is


promoted as a newsmagazine. What is surprising is that, despite beingpromoted as a newsmagazine, only a third of their articles contribute tothis mission.

The second highest rated article content is that of appearance and fash-ion, which makes up a quarter (24%) of the total article content. Whencombined with the 37% of articles focusing on entertainment, one can seethe primary message of these magazines appears to be about the impor-tance of fitting into popular culture. In addition, related to the appearancecategory is the featured men category, which reinforces the appearanceand fashion message by advertising men that can be idolized fortheir good looks. These findings are consistent with others that havefound gay men are extremely critical about how one should look or dress(Halkitis et al., 2004).

LIMITATIONS AND FUTURE OUTLOOK

There were several limitations related to this study. The first limitationis that the magazines selected for analysis are magazines focusing on pop-ular culture. None of the most popular magazines identified for use in thisanalysis (those having the greatest circulation) was found to concentrateprimarily on national or world events. Therefore, the findings that a largenumber of ads and article content that focus on fashion, appearance, andtravel is not that surprising. A second limitation that may have impactedthe results is that ads that did not constitute at least one third of a pagewere not included in the analysis. This meant that the last few pages ofeach magazine, where hundreds of classified ads appear, were notcounted. The content of these ads, and their impact, has not been includedor analysis.

CONCLUSION

Despite these limitations, this study provides a detailed analysis of thefour most popular gay men’s magazines, examining both the content ofthe articles and the advertisements. The results mirrored previous studiesthat have examined the content and advertising of women’s magazines.Kilbourne (1999) attests to how women are objectified in advertisementsand a similar finding has been demonstrated here in that men’s bodies areobjectified and made into a superficial image. Much of what being a gay


man is relates to traveling and what fashion style is in. The men depictedin these popular gay magazines fit a particular mold. They send a messageto their readership that says they should be young, hairless, Caucasian,interested in popular culture/entertainment, and of course, they shouldlike to travel. Groesz et al. (2002) and Kilbourne (1999) suggest thatmany men will internalize popular images and as a consequence developa sense of negative self-worth. Although most men can never attain theideals presented in these magazine due to genetics or economics, thesemagazines portray a look and a lifestyle look that seems commonplaceand easy to attain. Clearly, further research is needed to investigate therole such magazines might play in the development of low self-worth andnegative body image among gay men.

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An Investigation of Content and Media Images in Gay Men's Magazines

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